Last night was the last HIV patient presentation of the spring/summer; it was an odd one – not like our usual casual, confident get-together with people we know well, talking easily to young students who are always fascinated and slightly appalled. This was an elaborate, rather stiff, formal presentation run by some people up from London - big graphics, business backdrop, Powerpoint, dinner afterwards ("would you like chicken or salmon?"). I think a pharmaceutical company was underwriting everything, which is why there was so much obvious and unnecessary expenditure floating about. The idea was to talk to GPs (general practitioners) about recognizing and referring patients with HIV.
Well, mostly it was fine... if, as I say, rather stiff and overproduced (and under-attended; a large area of the country with lots of GPs only resulted in 30 confirmations, and of those only 13 (!) actually showed up). A_, the new young consultant at our clinic, gave a basic introduction – bless him, he is still so young, and always a little clueless about people/emotions/communication; but he means very well, and throws lots of technical facts around. Then a more experienced, and more opinionated, GP from the Manchester area set things on a somewhat firmer social/pragmatic footing. Then Paul F– and I talked....
The weird moment came from the two guys at the back. They both seemed different than expected – didn't act like doctors, if there's a way that doctors act; I thought they both seemed more like football coaches (Paul F– said he thought they seemed like thugs). One of them weighed in about the tricky-but-familiar situation of telling partners of people diagnosed with HIV, without the patient's consent; we all leapt in, trying to offer advice, information, etc. – he was having none of it; he blustered away, treating us as fools who had no idea what we were doing. He said something like, "well, you'd call the police if someone were shooting people with a revolver, wouldn't you?" Hmm, well, haven't heard that kind of metaphor since the late 1980s (for instance, go look at Alan Bownes' sleazy but interesting play Beirut, which was a paranoia-violence-sex-end-of-the-world one-act about a grim AIDS-driven future, from 1986 – you probably won't be able to find it, though; it was trendy at the time, but we're talking underground, small publisher, etc.).
I tried to explain, unsuccessfully, about the whole we-and-them thing – that thinking of the situation that way was based on thinking of AIDS as something that was brought in by Them (fags, furriners, bad people who had sex and shot up all the time) to infect and destroy Us (you know. Good people. Us. Me, my wife and kids. Normal people who vote Republican, and make immigration laws). He still thought we were all full of horseshit. He didn't talk to anybody (except his friend in the back row), and at the end of the meeting wolfed down dinner and left without having anything to do with anybody else.
Yuck... well... hmm. I suppose it's better that he was there at all. It was rather strange....
***
On coming home, located Patrick and Catherine, who have been discussing the possibility that he will move in downstairs. They were both looking good; summer does treat people well, and they wear stylish clothes and lighten up generallly. Then dragged everyone to a bar that was filled by the gang associated with the Latin American music festival; a very good DJ, and a very sexy, cheerful, beefily gym-built young black guy from Brasil, who was playing guitar and singing (Patrick was entranced). R– was there, handsome as usual (he does look older these days, though – the ravages of time and the dancer; but that merely adds to his potential attraction as partner material).
Talked again to J– and his girlfriend, the tiny, exquisitely charming lawyer. She was again charming and fun, and said the perfect thing that made the whole 'revolver' moment mentioned above all right – when they left (they'll get on a plane early in the morning) she said, "Keep up the good fight." Nice of her, it helps to think like that...
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